depict

English

Etymology

From Middle English depict, from Latin dēpictus, from dēpingō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈpɪkt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪkt

Verb

depict (third-person singular simple present depicts, present participle depicting, simple past and past participle depicted)

1. To render a representation of something, using words, sounds, images, or other means.

   Synonyms: portray, express, exhibit, register, show, describe, visualise, draw, render, depicture

   • 1639, Thomas Fuller, The Historie of the Holy Warre‎, Cambridge, Book 4, Chapter 12, p. 189:

     And by [these Embassadours] he sent to their master a Tent, wherein the history of the Bible was as richly as curiously depicted in needle-work;

   • 1770, Thomas Chatterton, The Auction, a Poem: A Familiar Epistle to a Friend‎, London: George Kearsly:

     The Spring, when all its beauties rise,
     I see depicted in your eyes

   • 1851, George Borrow, chapter XXIV, in Lavengro; the Scholar—the Gypsy—the Priest. , volume II, London: John Murray , →OCLC, page 212:

     At first, I believe, I answered her very incoherently, for I observed alarm beginning to depict itself upon her countenance.

   • 1984, Lawrence Starr, “Toward a Reevaluation of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess”, in American Music, volume 2, number 2, page 27:

     The well-known words depict a woman seeking sanctuary in a love relationship form a brutal, rapacious man.

   • 1987, Niall O'Loughlin, “Music Reviews: 20th-century guitar”, in The Musical Times, volume 128, number 1734, page 443:

     Here the music depicts the delicate pattern of ice on windows.

   • 1994, E. Pennisi, "Breathe (xenon) deeply to see lungs clearly," Science News, vol. 146, no. 5, p. 70 (caption),

     False-color computer images depict lungs removed from a mouse.

Usage notes

The subjects of the verb include words, music and images.

Related terms

• depiction
• depictive

Translations

Adjective

depict (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) Depicted.
   • Early 1400s, John Lydgate, “The Concords of Company” in James Orchard Halliwell (ed.), A Selection from the Minor Poems of Dan John Lydgate, London: The Percy Society, 1840, p. 177,

     I fond a lyknesse depict upon a wal,

     Armed in vertues, as I walk up and doun,

     The hed of thre ful solempne and roial,

     Intellectus, memorye, and resoun;